U.S. Senate Primary: Justice 54%, Mooney 24%
A new Emerson College Polling/The Hill survey of West Virginia Republican Primary voters finds 28% of voters support Attorney General Patrick Morrisey in the gubernatorial primary, 25% support former State Representative Moore Capito, 19% support Chris Miller, and 12% support Secretary of State Mac Warner. Sixteen percent are undecided.
Since the March West Virginia poll, Morrisey’s support has decreased by five percentage points, while Capito increased by 11 points, Miller by three, and Warner by six.
“Morrisey leads Capito among registered Republican voters, 29% to 23%, whereas independent or unaffiliated voters break for Capito over Morrisey, 35% to 23%,” Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said.
“Morrisey outperforms Capito with voters whose highest degree of education is high school or less, 31% to 17%, and college, 29% to 23%. Capito leads among GOP voters with a postgraduate degree, 43% to 18%.”
When undecided voters are asked which candidate they lean toward and are accounted for in the candidate’s total support, Morrisey’s support increases to 33%, Capito’s to 29%, Miller’s to 21%, and Warner’s to 15%.
In the U.S. Senate Republican Primary, 54% support Governor Jim Justice, while 24% support U.S. Representative Alexander Mooney. With the candidate undecided voters lean toward accounted for, Justice’s support increases to 60% and Mooney to 30%.
Support for Justice has not changed since March, at 54%, while support for Mooney increased seven points, from 17% to 24%.
The economy is the top issue for Republican primary voters at 55%, followed by education at 11%, coal/energy at 9%, threats to democracy at 5%, and immigration at 4%.
Republican primary voters were asked how concerned they are about the following issues: the cost of living, border security, and transgender issues.
Methodology
The Emerson College Polling/The Hill West Virginia survey was conducted May 2-5, 2024. The sample of GOP Primary Voters voters, n=558, has a margin of error (MOE), of +/- 4.1 percentage points. The data sets were weighted by gender, education, age, and region based on 2024 turnout modeling. Turnout modeling is based on U.S. Census parameters, exit polling, and voter registration data (WV S.O.S.).
It is important to remember that subsets based on demographics, such as gender, age, education, and race/ethnicity, carry with them higher credibility intervals, as the sample size is reduced. Survey results should be understood within the poll’s range of scores, and with a confidence interval of 95% a poll will fall outside the range of scores 1 in 20 times.
Data was collected by contacting cell phones via MMS-to-web and landlines via Interactive Voice Response (IVR) provided by Aristotle.
This survey was conducted by Emerson College Polling and sponsored by Nexstar Media. All questions asked in this survey with exact wording, along with full results and cross tabulations can be found under “Full Results.”
